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Mappa mundi texts and images present a panorama of the medieval world-view, c.1300; the Hereford map studied in close detail. Filled with information and lore, mappae mundi present an encyclopaedic panorama of the conceptual "landscape" of the middle ages. Previously objects of study for cartographers and geographers, the value of medieval maps to scholars in other fields is now recognised and this book, written from an art historical perspective, illuminates the medieval view of the world represented in a group of maps of c.1300. Naomi Kline's detailed examination of the literary, visual, oral and textual evidence of the Hereford mappa mundi and others like it, such as the Psalter Maps, the...
The first-century C.E. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus is our main source of information for the early history of the Samaritans, a community closely related to Judaism whose development as an independent religion is commonly dated in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Josephus' two main works, Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, contain a number of passages that purport to describe the origin, character and actions of the Samaritans. In composing his histories, Josephus drew on different sources, some identifiable others unknown to us. Contemporary Josephus research has shown that he did so not as a mere compiler but as a creative writer who selected and quoted his sources carefully and deliber...
People rely on reason to think about and navigate the abstract world of human relations in much the same way they rely on maps to study and traverse the physical world. Starting from that simple observation, renowned geographer Gunnar Olsson offers in Abysmal an astonishingly erudite critique of the way human thought and action have become deeply immersed in the rhetoric of cartography and how this cartographic reasoning allows the powerful to map out other people’s lives. A spectacular reading of Western philosophy, religion, and mythology that draws on early maps and atlases, Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein, Thomas Pynchon, Gilgamesh, and Marcel Duchamp, Abysmal is itself a minimalist guide to the terrain of Western culture. Olsson roams widely but always returns to the problems inherent in reason, to question the outdated assumptions and fixed ideas that thinking cartographically entails. A work of ambition, scope, and sharp wit, Abysmal will appeal to an eclectic audience—to geographers and cartographers, but also to anyone interested in the history of ideas, culture, and art.
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A classified bibliographic resource for tracing the history of Jewish translation activity from the Middle Ages to the present day, providing the researcher with over a thousand entries devoted solely to the Jewish role in the east-to-west transmission of Greek and Arab learning and science into Latin or Hebrew. Other major sections extend the coverage to modern times, taking special note of the absorption of European literature into the Jewish cultural orbit via Hebrew, Yiddish, or Judezmo translations, for instance, or the translation and reception of Jewish literature written in Jewish languages into other languages such as Arabic, English, French, German, or Russian. This polyglot bibliography, the first of its kind, contains over 2,600 entries, is enhanced by a vast number of additional bibliographic notes leading to reviews and related resources, and is accompanied by both an author and a subject index.
This book investigates Jan Van Eyck's patronage by the Crown of Portugal and his role as diplomat-painter for the Duchy of Burgundy following his first voyage to Lisbon in 1428-1429, when he painted two portraits of Infanta Isabella, who became the third wife of Philip the Good in 1430. New portrait identifications are provided for the Ghent Altarpiece (1432) and its iconographical prototype, the lost Fountain of Life. These altarpieces are analysed with regard to King Joao I's conquest of Ceuta, achieved by his sons, who were hailed as an "illustrious generation." Strong family ties between the dynastic houses of Avis and Lancaster explain Lusitania's sustained fascination with Arthurian lo...
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The Alexander Romance, a fabulous pseudo-history of the life of Alexander the Great compiled in late Antiquity, was one of the most popular secular texts in Europe during the Middle Ages. Its subsequent influence on the development of French and German literature has been significant. Professor Ross was a leading authority on the history and transmission of the Latin and French versions of the Romance, and his work has done much to clarify the spread of the Alexander legend in medieval European literature. This volume brings together all of David Ross's papers on the Alexander Romance, dealing separately with the Latin versions and their French and German reworkings. These include the first publication of a number of original texts in Latin and in German. There is also a valuable section on the development of the accompanying picture-cycle to the Romance, which derives from late-antique sources.